Sacred Archetypes

Women are capable of expressing many different facets of their personalities. We are Wife, Mother, Lover, Daughter, Warrior, Teacher, Sister, Healer and so on. Just as the moon waxes and wanes throughout the month so do you. You experience different moods, desires and aspects of yourself (and being female) depending upon where you are in your menstrual cycle.

These four archetypes of the Female Energy Cycle are:

The Virgin/Maiden

The virgin self emerges after the menstrual bleeding has stopped, and the fresh new womb lining grows. This phase is seen as the phase of the virgin: she is full of innocence, energy and potential. She feels good in her body – flirtatious, sexy and lighter after the dark days of her blood time. Her ability to conceive and gestate is just emerging, and is still unproven. At his point in her cycle, she feels freest from her menstrual pull – she is a virgin in the traditional sense of the word – a woman unto herself.

The Mother

The time of ovulation and possible conception is represented by the mother who has the ability to nurture new life. Her fertile womb space is warm and soft. At this time a woman tends to feel loving and enjoys giving of herself fully, either by becoming a mother to a child, or in her other work, creativity and home making. This mid-cycle ovulation symbolises the ability to give and sustain life. It is the full flourishing of a woman’s life.

The Enchantress/ Wild Woman

The pre-menstrual stage is a descent from the light, outward stage of our cycle and into the dark, inner stage. Progesterone and oestrogen dance together to create dynamic swings. The wild woman dances a magical path between huge bouts of creativity and emotional storms. In becoming a wise woman you learn how to harness this powerful energy, knowing when to destroy, how to express your righteous anger, and when to go within and reflect.

The Crone/ Wise Woman

The crone emerges during the late premenstrual and bleeding time. She can be a wise woman or a destructive witch depending on how she handles this time. Her mood darkens and she becomes pulled inward, becoming quieter, more reflective and more in touch with the dream time. She is less “in the world” and like an older person is in need of more rest. This time has many gifts for the woman and her community, if she can learn to retreat and allow her visions to emerge from her darkest depths.

We live in a culture which worships the virgin, her nubile body, her hermaphrodite qualities and budding sexuality. One which side-lines the mother, not celebrating or honoring the acts of gestation, birth and child-rearing. A culture which fears the power of the enchantress and turns away from the wisdom of the elders, the value of reflection and dreams.

In order to reclaim our full selves, to integrate each of these aspects through which we will pass into our lives, we must first learn to embrace them though our cycles.

We need to take time to honor the part of ourselves which mothers and nurtures; the part of us which yearns to be girlish and free; the wise woman who watches in the wings full of wisdom and the erotic enchantress who can bewitch and create magic. Our cycles allow us to take on these roles, to live these hidden parts of our psyches – perhaps they are stages we have already passed through in our lives, glad that they are behind us, or sad for their loss, or stages we feel uncomfortable with becoming.

Our cycling nature gives us constant teasing tastes of the whole gamut of womanhood, and our life cycle, month after month. It also ensures that we deal with things which we might otherwise avoid: anger, sadness, conflict, grief and even eroticism…

We are always much more complex, much wiser than we give ourselves credit for, our potential much greater than we dare to hope or dream